The first big thing that Jose Maria Olazabal, the European Ryder Cup captain, did for team was get his players some special golf bags. All 12 of them arrived at the first tee this week at Medinah with bags emblazoned with the iconic silhouette depicting the late Seve Ballesteros’ British Open title in 1984.

That silhouette became Ballesteros’ business logo, and he had it tattooed on his left forearm. He described the moment he rolled in that last putt at Scotland’s St. Andrews course as “the happiest moment of my whole sporting life.’’

Ballesteros passed away on May 7, 2011, following a battle with cancer. This Ryder Cup will be Europe’s first without the charismatic Spaniard and no one will miss him more than Olazabal. They formed the most successful partnership in Ryder Cup history, going 11-2-2 in matches they played together.

Though Olazabal won two Masters titles, his career world-wide is best defined by the things he did with Ballesteros at his side. It’s the competitive spirit that they had together that Olazabal hopes to create as captain at this 39th Ryder Cup, and the golf bag tribute to Ballesteros underscores that.

“He was a great figure, not just for myself but for the whole European squad every year that he played,’’ said Olazabal. “We are going to miss him a lot. He was a special man.’’

Olazabal, also from Spain, grew up in a picturesque farmhouse 100 yards from the clubhouse at the Real Golf Club de San Sebastian, where his mother and father both worked.

He hit his first shot at age 2, and his skills progressed steadily from there. Olazabal made his first Ryder Cup team in 1987, when the matches were played at Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village course in Ohio. The electric atmosphere and huge crowds there left Olazabal in awe, but – fortunately for him – Ballesteros was there.

“He made it clear to (European captain) Tony Jacklin that he wanted to play with me,’’ recalled Olazabal. “I will never forget that little walk from the putting green to the first tee. I was shaking like a leaf, so I kept my head down. He looked at me and said, `Jose Maria, you play your game, and I’ll take care of the rest.’ And he did.’’

Europe won that ’87 Ryder Cup on American soil, a first in the series and a victory that went a long way in popularizing the event after the U.S. had dominated for six ho hum decades.

Olazabal, Europe’s vice captain in 2008 and 2010, inherits a European squad that has won four of the last five Ryder Cups and six of the last eight. His team this week is loaded with veterans, Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts being its only Ryder Cup rookie.

The Ryder Cup has changed a bit since Olazabal and Ballesteros played together. Olazabal flew to Chicago on Monday with only three of his players with him. The visiting teams used to arrive on the same flight.

“Of the rest of the guys, five were playing last week (in Tour Championship in Atlanta) and the rest have a house or a place here in the States, so it was very logical for them to stay here and just make the trip from their homes,’’ said Olazabal.

Like American captain Davis Love III, Olazabal tended to plenty of off-course administrative details over the last two years to get his team ready for this week. Like Love, he played a limited schedule but shot 65 in his last round before Ryder Cup obligations became overwhelming.

While Love made four captain’s picks Olazabal had to make only two – England’s Ian Poulter and Colsaerts. The determination of pairings will be an ongoing project, just as it will be for Love.

“This is a new Ryder Cup. We are playing here against a very strong team,’’ said Olazabal. “We are playing away. The crowds are going to be rooting for the home team really strong, and we have to be prepared for that. Both teams are pretty much even, and it’s going to be a close match.’’

So, who should win?

“I don’t see any favorites,’’ said Olazabal. “It will be decided, obviously, on the golf course.’’

Go ahead, I dare you! Show me one American city that has a richer golf history than Chicago. I don’t think you can do it.

Of course, as a golf writer here for over 40 years, I may be prejudiced. Still, I can’t think of another city with such a broad background of action on the links. This may sound like a golf history lesson, but there’s no denying the huge role Chicago has played in the development of American golf.

For starters, the first 18-hole course in the United States was Chicago Golf Club’s, which opened in 1892 in the suburb of Downers Grove.

Then there’s the oldest tournament on the PGA Tour (next to the U.S. Golf Association’s U.S. Open). It was the Western Open, staged by the Chicago-based Western Golf Assn. which – most appropriately – now has its headquarters in the north suburb of Golf. Staged mostly in Chicago from 1899 to 2006, the Western Open tradition stays alive in its successor – the BMW Championship, a fixture in the Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs.

Competition-wise, how can Chicago be beat?

The first Masters was won by a Chicago club pro, Oak Park’s Horton Smith in 1934.

The first U.S. Amateur was won by Charles B. Macdonald, the designer of Chicago Golf Club, in 1895.

The first dominant player in the U.S. was Willie Anderson, the only player to win three straight U.S. Opens (1903-05). The winner of four U.S. Opens in a five-year stretch (he also triumphed in 1901), Anderson was the club pro at Onwentsia in Lake Forest.

One of the very first U.S. Women’s Amateur champions was Bessie Anthony, a member at Chicago’s long-gone Westward Ho club. She won her title — then the biggest available to women in American golf — at Chicago Golf Club in 1903, making her one of golf’s first hometown heroines.

The U.S. Open has been played in Chicago 13 times at eight different courses. Chicago Golf Club and Medinah each hosted three times. Anderson (1897), great English pro Harry Vardon (1900) and enigmatic John McDermott (1911) were the winners at Chicago Golf. McDermott would win again in 1912, making him one of just six players – Anderson, Bobby Jones, Ralph Guldahl, Ben Hogan and Curtis Strange were the others — to successfully defend a U.S. Open title. McDermott would later check himself into a psychiatric hospital where he spent most of the rest of his life.

Medinah’s champions were Cary Middlecoff (1949), Lou Graham (1975) and Hale Irwin (1990). Irwin’s win was particularly historic, as it was the first U.S. Open title achieved in a sudden death playoff with Mike Donald the loser of their epic two-man struggle.

Olympia Fields hosted twice, Johnny Farrell winning in 1928 and Jim Furyk in 2003.

The other Chicago U.S. Opens had good winners as well – Alex Smith at Onwentsia in 1906, Walter Hagen at Midlothian in 1914, Gene Sarazen at Skokie, in Glencoe, in 1922 and Johnny Goodman at North Shore, in Glenview, in 1933. Goodman was the fifth, and last, amateur to win the U.S. Open.

In women’s golf, the history doesn’t go back quite as far but Chicago did host the U.S. Women’s Open three times – twice at LaGrange Country Club where Sandra Haynie won in 1974 and Pat Bradley in 1981 and once at the Merit Club, in Libertyville, where Karrie Webb captured the title in 2000.

The PGA Championship has been played in Chicago six times at four different courses, Olympia Fields (1925 and 1961) and Medinah (1999 and 2006) both hosting twice. The first of those PGAs, though, had the most local flavor as Jock Hutchison, a transplanted Scotsman, won at Flossmoor Country Club where he long worked as a club pro.

Hutchison’s win came in only the tournament’s third staging and he was lucky to be among the 32 qualifiers. In a Cinderella story reminiscent of John Daly at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis in 1991, Hutchison entered at the last minute and got in only because two qualifiers ahead of him were unable to compete. The PGA tourney, staged at match play then, received little coverage in the local newspapers because a bigger golf event was being played in Chicago at the same time. Skokie Country Club was hosting an exhibition match pitting Vardon and Ted Ray, the famous English pros, against Chick Evans and Phil Guadin, a couple of Chicago stars.

Hagen (1925) and Jerry Barber (1961) won the two PGAs staged at Olympia Fields, Payne Stewart took the one at Kemper Lakes, in Hawthorn Woods, in 1989 and Woods won the two at Medinah.

Chicago’s major golf organizations are among the best-established in the country. As mentioned previously, the Western Golf Assn. was organized in 1899 and still stages annual competitions for the pros (BMW Championship), adult amateurs (Western Amateur) and juniors (Western Junior).

The Western Open and Western Amateur both started in 1899 at the Glen View Club in the north suburbs. The Open was considered one of golf’s major championships through 1957. All the great players over the years won it – from Hagen to Sarazen to Guldahl to Byron Nelson to Ben Hogan to Arnold Palmer to Jack Nicklaus to Sam Snead to Tom Watson, Nick Price and Woods. Your credentials for being a great player would be tarnished if you didn’t win the Western Open.

While the WGA usually took the Western Amateur around the country, it’s now contested mostly at Chicago courses. It also has had its share of great champions, among them being Chick Evans, Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Hal Sutton, Strange, Ben Crenshaw, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard, Scott Verplank and Woods. You want a taste of golf history, look no further than the champions lists of the Western Open and Western Amateur.

The Western Junior has a solid history, too. It was first played in 1914 and was the first such competition in the history of American golf. In the last year the WGA joined forces with the Women’s Western Golf Assn., which also had a rich history operating independently. The WWGA has been putting on tournaments for 112 years and conducted the Women’s Western Open, considered one of the women’s major events, from 1930 to 1967. Thirteen times it was played on Chicago courses.

Now the WWGA holds only its annual Amateur and Junior championships, but its return to the professional stage looms a distinct possibility now that a connection with the WGA has finally been initiated.

Chicago golf isn’t all about tournament play, either. More than anything it’s about devotion to the sport.

The Illinois Section of the PGA was formed in 1916 as one of the founding sections of the PGA of America. The IPGA staged the first championship for its members in 1923, but its biggest event now is the Illinois Open. Though records date back only to 1950, the Illinois Open or versions of it were conducted as early as 1923 as well. Today the IPGA has over 800 members based at 325 facilities and it conducts over 50 events annually. This year, of course, its members have also played a big role in the organization of this Ryder Cup.

The Chicago District Golf Association opened its doors in 1914 and had 400 member clubs, private and public, and 82,000 members at last count in 2011. It’s one of the biggest such organizations in the country catering to amateur and recreational players.

The National Golf Foundation, which once had headquarters in Chicago, reports that the Chicago area has 800,000 golfers. Still not convinced that Chicago golf is the greatest?

Here’s a few more factoids for you:

TOMMY ARMOUR, known as one of the game’s greatest teachers when he worked as Medinah’s head pro from 1933-44, wasn’t a bad player, either. Before settling in Chicago he won three of the current major titles – the 1927 U.S. Open, 1930 PGA and 1931 British Open.

ERRIE BALL, who had long runs as the head pro at both Oak Park and Butler National, in Oak Brook, was world renowned before making Chicago his home for 44 years. He was the youngest player in British Open history when he teed off at age 16 in 1926 and played in the first Masters in 1934.

CHIP BECK, long settled in Lake Forest, shot only the second 59 in PGA Tour history (at the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational) and made the first hole-in-one on a par-4 hole in Nationwide Tour history, at the 2003 Omaha Classic.

GARY ADAMS, who founded the TaylorMade golf company in 1979, was one of the sport’s great innovators, having introduced the metalwood.

THE PRESS LOUNGE at Augusta National, home of the Masters tournament, is named after Charles Bartlett, the Chicago Tribune golf writer for 36 years prior to his death in 1967.

TOM BENDELOW, long employed by Chicago’s Spalding sports equipment manufacturer, is most likely golf’s most prolific course designer. He did the original design for an estimated 700 courses nationwide, with over 100 of them – including all three courses on the Medinah premises – in Illinois.

HERB GRAFFIS, a long-time Chicago golf writer, joined his brother Joe in founding Golfdom, the first periodical devoted to the business side of golf, and he was also a founder of both the National Golf Foundation and Golf Writers Assn. of America.

GEORGE S. MAY, perhaps more than any other tournament promoter, turned golf into a spectator sport with his All-American and World Championship tournaments at Tam O’Shanter, in Niles, in the 1930s and 1940s. His 1946 All-American tourney there was the first televised golf tournament.

THEY’RE ALMOST forgotten by now, but Chicago produced some of the country’s best women golfers long before there was an LPGA. First there was Bessie Anthony. Then along came Elaine Rosenthal, who learned the game at Ravisloe in Homewood, and was the runner-up in her second national tournament — the 1914 U.S. Women’s Amateur. After Rosenthal came Virginia Van Wie, a Beverly member who won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 1932, 1933 and 1934. Both Rosenthal and Van Wie played in numerous exhibitions and were considered among the very best women players of their day in an era long before the LPGA was born.

Give up yet on Chicago being the America city richest in golf history?

A case could admittedly be made that Chicago’s tournament scene has dwindled in recent years. The PGA Tour’s BMW Championship is an every-other-year attraction now, with the WGA wanting to showcase its big event in other golf-hungry markets. The Ladies PGA Tour, which staged no less than three of the 14 tournaments in its inaugural season of 1950 in Chicago, has been an infrequent visitor ever since. But, while it hasn’t been here since 2009, that last visit was one of the biggest events in LPGA history – the Solheim Cup matches at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.

The Champions Tour hasn’t been here since 2002, but it had long and successful runs – at Stonebridge in Aurora and Kemper Lakes in Long Grove – before that. Even the Nationwide Tour is gone, departing after a seven-year run at The Glen Club in Glenview in 2007.

Still, while Chicago might not seem the golf hotbed it once was, the fact that the Ryder Cup is being played here this week shows that all those years building a rich golf tradition count for something. Chicago golfers haven’t left the game in any significant numbers during the recent economic downtimes, and golf excitement won’t be leaving Chicago any time soon either.

It’s hard to imagine Luke Donald drawing hecklers when the 39th Ryder Cup matches tee off on Friday at Medinah Country Club. But it could happen.

A former NCAA champion for Northwestern, Donald has been a class act since establishing residence in Chicago 15 years ago. He married a Chicago woman, kept his NU coach as his swing guru after turning pro and has been a big supporter of his alma mater’s golf programs. Donald has been a big booster of the local First Tee youth programs as well. Owning a degree in art theory and practice, he even painted a golf ball that is on display on Michigan Avenue (one is pictured below) as part of a charity fundraiser.

As one of Chicago’s few PGA Tour representatives Donald has been stellar as a player as well. Last year he became the first golfer to win the money titles on both the PGA and European PGA tours. In doing so he climbed to the coveted No. 1 world ranking, a status he held until Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy got hot a few month ago.

This week, though, Donald will be part of the enemy. He’s a key member of the 12-man European team which will try to beat the U.S. in the biennial competition for the fifth time in six tries.

The Ryder Cup, like no other sporting event, triggers patriotic emotion that will play into Donald’s week, hometown hero or not.

“Certainly it’s going to be a unique experience for me,’’ Donald admitted during last week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta. “Hopefully I can take away a small percentage of the home crowd support. The USA will be supported heavily but, having quite a few people I know, I’ll get quite a few of them on my side.’’

But those “quite a few’’ might not be too noticeable amidst all the expected hoopla. Donald’s just hoping for the best.

“If I can drag away just 1 percent of the crowd’s support to my side, or the European side, then it’s an advantage,’’ he said. “The biggest advantage for any team is playing at home. If I can take a little bit of that advantage away, then I’m helping my team in a small way.’’

Donald, 34, has helped Team Europe in a big way in three previous Ryder Cups. He’s never played on a losing side and had an 8-2-1 record in his matches in 2004, 2006 and 2010. He wasn’t in the 2008 competition, won by the U.S.

This year hasn’t been as spectacular as last year for Donald, but he is playing good coming in after his 67-67 finish that netted him a tie for third at The Tour Championship.

“I’ve just been really close, and it was nice to finally string a couple of good rounds together,’’ said Donald.

Pat Goss, Donald’s swing coach and the long-time head coach at Northwestern, doesn’t feel Donald’s 2012 campaign has been too shabby.

“He won on both tours, which is impressive,’’ said Goss. “It was going to be tough to repeat what he did last year, but I’d still say he had a very solid year. His driving was way straighter, but his iron play wasn’t as good. He just needs some momentum.’’

The only real snafu in Donald’s 2012 campaign happened off the course, when he was critical of course architect Gil Hanse on Twitter during the Deutsche Bank Championship last month. Donald thought he was sending the message privately, but it went to all his followers and created a mini-uproar that Donald quickly defused with a sincere apology.

In his great 2011 season Donald experienced more of life than just on the course. His second daughter was born and his father passed away. Despite all that has happened on and off the course, Goss doesn’t see much change in Donald over the years.

“He’s not much different a person than the one I had when he was in college,’’ said Goss. “He just has more money (over $28 million in tournament earnings alone). He’s kept his focus on getting better.’’

Goss expects Donald will receive “a semi-warm reception’’ from the galleries at Medinah.

“He’s a proud Chicagoan. He loves living here,’’ said Goss. “He’s worked his way into the fabric of the Chicago golf community – but I’m sure he’s aware the fans will be cheering for the other team.’’

Donald is a member at Conway Farms in Lake Forest, and helped that club land next year’s BMW Championship as part of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs. His lone competitive experience at Medinah was in the 2006 PGA Championship, where he played with Tiger Woods in the last twosome on Sunday.

Donning a red shirt, a la Woods’ Sunday routine, Donald couldn’t keep up with his playing partner. Woods went on to win the title and Donald tied for third — his best-ever finish in golf’s four major championships.

Roger Warren got his start in golf while living in the Chicago area. He went on to big things in the game, and now he’s back.

Warren will captain the U.S. in the Junior Ryder Cup competition, which begins at 5 p.m. on Sunday with opening ceremonies at Olympia Fields Country Club. After two days of matches on Olympia’s South course the 12-player teams from the U.S. and Europe will shift to Medinah Country Club for a 2 p.m. Friendship match over 10 holes of the No. 3 course that will host the full-blown Ryder Cup competition beginning on Friday.

Warren became captain of the U.S. team for what the PGA of America bills as “an international showcase of golf’s next generation,’’ because he is the PGA president twice removed. It’s an honor that is bestowed on past leaders of the 27,000-member organization.

For Warren it’s also a homecoming. He was a high school teacher as well as a basketball and golf coach at Dundee Crown High School and the Illinois Math & Science Academy before entering the golf business at Village Links of Glen Ellyn in 1986. He’s come a long, long way since then.

After leaving The Links in 1991 Warren directed the operation at Seven Bridges in Woodridge from 1991-2003 and then headed for the famed Kiawah Island Resort near Charleston, S.C. He became the president there in 2005 and was concurrently the president of the PGA of America through 2006 and the PGA’s honorary president in 2008.

With August’s PGA Championship played at Kiawah Warren was additionally general chairman of that event.

“I’ve had my hands full,’’ admitted Warren, “but I couldn’t be more excited about the Junior Ryder Cup. I’m looking forward to it because of my background in high school coaching and because of the quality of the junior golfers on the team.’’

The Junior Ryder Cup will be played for the eighth time on Olympia Fields’ South course. The series is event at 3-3-1. Past participants include Rory McIlroy and Nicolas Colsaerts, both members of the current European Ryder Cup squad. Other golf notables who have played in the event include Sergio Garcia, Suzann Pettersen, and Matteo Manassero for Europe and Hunter Mahan, Luke Guthrie, Bud Cauley and Jordan Spieth for the U.S.

Warren’s U.S. squad is led by Robbie Shelton, of Wilmer, AL. Shelton, 16, won both the Junior PGA Championship at Sycamore Hills in Ft. Wayne, Ind., and the Junior Players Championship at Florida’s TPC Sawgrass this summer.

Each team has 12 players, six boys and six girls. The other boys include two hotshot Californians. Cameron Champ was runner-up in the Junior PGA and Beau Hossler, at 17, made the cut at the U.S. Open. Rounding out the boys’ contingent are Gavin Hall, of Pittsford, N.Y.; Jim Liu, of Smithtown, N.Y.; and Scottie Scheffler, of Dallas.

The U.S. girls are headed by Samantha Wagner, of Windemere, FL., and Alison Lee, of Valencia, Calif. Wagner was runner-up in the Junior PGA and Lee was the leading point-getter in the Junior Ryder Cup standings.

Five members of the U.S. team earned automatic spots off the post lists. The other seven are Warren’s captain’s picks. Only 2013 high school graduates, or younger, were eligible.

Other girls on the U.S. squad are Cathy Cathrea, of Livermore, Calif.; Karen Chung, Livingstone, N.J.; Casey Danielson, Osceola, Wis.; and Esther Lee, Los Alamitos, Calif.

“Their experience and quality of play is tremendous,’’ said Warren. “They are all great young players. I know they will perform well. This event is very competitive, and it gives these kids a taste o what could happen if they take up a career in golf.’’

There’ll be six foursome matches on Monday morning, three boys and three girls, and six mixed ball matches in the afternoon. Twelve singles matches, involving all the players on both sides, are on tap for Tuesday.

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – For 11 years Jane Blalock has tried to get a senior tour going for the veterans or retirees on the Ladies PGA Tour. Now she’s apparently done it.

Blalock, the LPGA’s rookie-of-the-year in 1970 and a 27-time winner on the circuit, has made the LPGA Legends Tour her special project. She’s the chief executive officer of the circuit, which only consisted of a few events – some of them just one-day affairs – until recently. Those events raised over $8 million for charity, but pale in comparison to what’s coming in 2013.

Working with Dave Harner, director of golf operations at French Lick Resort, Blalock finally got the event that will help the Legends Tour go big-time. Harner and Blalock just announced that a 54-hole tournament will top off a week-long program at the southern Indiana facility that has the Pete Dye Course, the Donald Ross Course and the Valley Links nine-holer – dedicated to early course designer Tom Bendelow –on the property.

A fourth 18-holer, Sultan’s Run, supplements the resort’s golf options in Jasper, a 20-minute drive from French Lick.

The Dye Course, the well-received most recent creation of the prolific long-time Indiana resident architect, will be the site for the Legends biggest-ever event from Sept. 22-29, 2013. The 54-hole competition will follow the Alice Dye Women’s Invitational, an amateur event honoring Dye’s wife and sometimes co-course designer. Organizers promised there would be television coverage, though the particulars weren’t ready to be announced.

In between the amateur and Legends competitions will be a clinic, given by the former and current LPGA stars, and a pro-am. A Legends Hall of Fame will also be established at the resort.

“This is the largest event we’ve ever had, in every respect,’’ said Blalock. “This year we had eight events, and next year we’ll have at least 10. We’re expanding, and we’re going to have an event here every year as a celebration of women in golf.’’

Joining Blalock in making the announcement in the clubhouse at the Dye Course were LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley and long-time competitors Rosie Jones and Val Skinner. All spoke at the announcement festivities and participated in a golf outing afterwards.

Though many of the details weren’t announced, the event was triggered by a $300,000 donation to the American Heart Assn., which will be the tourney’s charitable beneficiary. In addition to the four women at the announcement, stars like Nancy Lopez, Patty Sheehan, Juli Inkster, Lori Kane, Liselotte Neumann, Nancy Scranton and Beth Daniel are expected to be involved. Blalock said between 30-60 players will compete.

“We’re expanding, and we’ll try to have all those great women – Kathy Whitworth, Mickey Wright, Louise Suggs — come to the event with us,’’ said Blalock.

She said the Legends Tour is for women “45 years young.’’ It’s 50 for the men’s ChampionsTour.

“This is the only time you’ll find our players admit their ages – even Jan Stephenson,’’ said Blalock. “And our super senior, Joanne Carner, can still beat all of us.’’

Indeed this is a big development for all of golf. The men’s Champions Tour was an immediate success once Arnold Palmer became involved in the 1980s. Now the women hope to follow suit, and the French Lick event could provide the impetus.

“French Lick has a proud history in women’s golf,’’ said Harner. “We had an open tournament here in 1957, which was won by Louise Suggs. The LPGA Championship was held here in 1959, with Betsy Rawls beating Patty Berg by one shot, and in 1960 the great Mickey Wright won her second LPGA Championship here.’’

Harner has been with French Lick through the hard times. He’s been with the resort for 34 years, and its comeback in the last six years has been astonishing. The town’s two big hotels, French Lick and West Baden, were hot spots in their early years and then required complete renovations after a casino was brought in.

The previous LPGA tourneys were all played at the Donald Ross Course, which was renovated. Dye built his course from scratch, and it has already hosted the Professional Players National Championship. Both courses were used last year when the Big Ten men’s and women’s championships were staged at French Lick. Those events will return in 2013 and 2014. The Legends event promises to be French Lick’s biggest yet.

“This is a fantastic, beautiful place,’’ said Skinner. “It’s nice to have a place where we can chase our dreams – even if those dreams have changed a bit.’’

“Our tour is lucky and honored to play at this amazing place,’’ said Jones. “We’re super excited.’’

“I’m ready!’’ said Bradley. “We have to wait a year? I’m ready now.’’

The upcoming Ryder Cup is much more than a three-day golf competition between the top touring professionals from the United States and Europe. It also encompasses a load of junior events that the PGA of America hopes will help grow the sport. Medinah Country Club will host some – but not all – of them.

Most unusual is the PGA Junior Golf League’s national championship. It’s a fledgling program patterned after Little League baseball and football’s Punt, Pass & Kick program, and it’s open to both boys and girls.

Golf’s version didn’t start until last year, and then in only four cities. It affiliated with the PGA of America in January.

Chicago came into the program for youngsters between the ages of 9-13 this year at just Pine Meadow, in Mundelein, and Cog Hill, in Lemont. The League’s national championship will start at Medinah on Sept. 14 with a skills’ competition and dinner. The following two days will feature team matches on Cog Hill’s No. 2 course followed by an awards ceremony.

“Last year there were 16 teams in the nation. This year there were 127,’’ said Dennis Johnson, head professional at Pine Meadow and captain of the Chicago team in the finals. “I thought it was stupid at first, but it’s an incredible program.’’

The format consists of a series of nine-hole two-player scramble matches with players getting jerseys (with numbers). It was only Pine Meadow vs. Cog Hill this year, and the Jemsek Golf facilities played four matches before Johnson picked an “all-league’’ team to participate in the national finals.

Next year he hopes to have 32 teams, with other Chicago clubs joining in.

“I will turn away no kid, but they can’t be raw beginners and they have to have clubs,’’ said Johnson. Some instruction and golf balls as well as the jerseys are part of the signup fee, which Johnson projects to be in the $150-200 range.

The program will get major exposure during and after the national championship. In addition to bringing teams from Boca Raton, FL.; Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco and Northern New Jersey to Medinah for the start of the national finals, Johnson’s Chicago team will return on the Wednesday of Ryder Cup week (SEPT 26) for an up-close look at the big global event. Their visit will be filmed for future promotional efforts.

Other members of the Illinois Section of the PGA, meanwhile, spent the summer conducting the Ryder Cup Youth Skills Challenge that will culminate with finals at Medinah on Sept. 22, three days before the pros arrive.

There were 57 local competitions, all free to youngsters who competed in age groups ranging from 6-8 to 15-17, and they drew over 3,000 participants. About 500 top finishers in those events qualified for regionals that were held at Oak Brook, Pine Meadow, Cog Hill and Cantigny, in Wheaton.

“As anticipated, it has been an overwhelming success,’’ said Michael Miller, IPGA executive director. “The event has truly allowed the community to embrace the enthusiasm and excitement of having the Ryder Cup right here in our backyard.’’

Those in the finals will receive free admission to the opening day of Ryder Cup week at Medinah.

Biggest of the junior adjuncts to the Ryder Cup, however, is the Junior Ryder Cup – a most competitive team event pitting the very best 17-and-under players from the U.S. and Europe. They’ll compete at Olympia Fields on Sept. 24-25 after three days of practice and opening ceremonies and then hold a more informal Friendship Bowl nine-hole match on Sept. 26 at Medinah in the final days before the main matches tee off.

Roger Warren is the captain of the U.S. squad. A teacher and coach at Dundee Crown High School and the Illinois Math & Science Academy, he got started in the business side of golf at Village Links of Glen Ellyn in 1986. He left the Links in 1991 to direct the operation at Seven Bridges, in Woodridge, through 2003. He went on to become national president of the PGA in 2005 and is now president of the Kiawah Resort in South Carolina, the site of this year’s PGA Championship.

“I couldn’t be more excited about the Junior Ryder Cup,’’ said Warren. “I’m looking forward to it because of my background in high school coaching and because of the quality of the junior golfers who are on the team. They’ll all be great players and good people.’’

Warren’s team of six boys and six girls features Robby Shelton of Wilmer, AL., who won the Junior PGA boys title in Ft. Wayne, Ind., last month, and Beau Hossler, of Mission Viejo, CA., who qualified for the last two U.S. Opens. Hossler, 17, was a sensation at this year’s Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club when he tied for 29th and became the youngest player to survive the tourney’s 36-hole cut since World War II.

The girls portion of the team is led by Alison Lee, of Valencia, CA., who led the points list off a nationwide series of tournaments to determine the automatic qualifiers for the team.

The Junior Ryder Cup has been contested seven times, the U.S. winning in 1997, 2008 and 2010 and Europe winning in 1999, 2002 and 2004. The 2006 competition, in Wales, was halved, so the series is all even at 3-3-1 going into the Olympia Fields event.